{"id":146,"date":"2017-06-30T18:05:47","date_gmt":"2017-06-30T22:05:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nehsjc.org\/theleague\/?p=146"},"modified":"2017-07-01T00:41:14","modified_gmt":"2017-07-01T04:41:14","slug":"police","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nehsjc.org\/theleague\/police\/","title":{"rendered":"Rising through the ranks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Boston Police officer Michael Gaskins. Photo: Ivy Wang<\/p>\n<p><strong>By Ivy Wang<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>During the past two years, the number of applicants signing up to become police officers has dropped significantly across the nation, especially among minority groups, according to the head of the state\u2019s major police chief\u2019s group.<\/p>\n<p>Chelsea Police Chief Brian Kyes, who also serves as president of the Massachusetts Major City Chiefs of Police, attributes that drop to the current negative view of the police that started with the shooting of an African-American man by police in Ferguson, Mo. in 2014. He said young men and women have \u201cbecome hesitant in their tracks towards becoming an officer.\u201d Kyes added that the way to change the trend is to provide young people with guidance.<\/p>\n<p><strong>(Mouse over bars to view numbers.)<\/strong><br \/>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/docs.google.com\/spreadsheets\/d\/13FCkxb3f5_R_ee6j4Ya3d84N1IX7pOUJJ6k_m-zRrTk\/pubchart?oid=598464280&amp;format=interactive\" width=\"800\" height=\"573\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" seamless=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/docs.google.com\/spreadsheets\/d\/13FCkxb3f5_R_ee6j4Ya3d84N1IX7pOUJJ6k_m-zRrTk\/pubchart?oid=1499910680&amp;format=interactive\" width=\"800\" height=\"538\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" seamless=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>That guidance will now be coming from Boston Police Diversity Recruitment Officer Michael Gaskins, who was appointed in February. With a background in career counseling, Gaskins said his goal is to help transition police officers of color from recruitment to promotion, with emphasis on getting them into commanding ranks.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI believe that seeing someone that looks like you who has made it to the top has a tremendous impact,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>According to WGBH, 42 percent of superintendent-level positions in the Boston Police Department are now filled by minorities. However, that ratio is not the same for other supervisory positions. Of 26 captains, only three are people of color. Only eight of 78 lieutenants are from minority groups.<\/p>\n<p>Gaskins added that increasing diversity can boost trust in the community.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_148\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-148\" style=\"width: 860px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"148\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/www.nehsjc.org\/theleague\/police\/police-2\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nehsjc.org\/theleague\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/police.jpg?fit=860%2C606&amp;ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"860,606\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-title=\"police\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"&lt;p&gt;Sign goes up at Boston Police Headquarters.&lt;\/p&gt;\n\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nehsjc.org\/theleague\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/police.jpg?fit=640%2C451&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"size-full wp-image-148\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nehsjc.org\/theleague\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/police.jpg?resize=640%2C451\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"451\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nehsjc.org\/theleague\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/police.jpg?w=860&amp;ssl=1 860w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nehsjc.org\/theleague\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/police.jpg?resize=300%2C211&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nehsjc.org\/theleague\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/police.jpg?resize=768%2C541&amp;ssl=1 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-148\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sign goes up at Boston Police Headquarters.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s a natural bias and identity that happens when we see someone who we identify with,\u201d he said. \u201cOur end goal is that we want to be a reflection of our community.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Gaskins says his plan is to continue gathering information about the current police force in order to establish a concrete plan of action for recruitment strategy. In August, he will be involved in advising a counsel for the new police recruits.<\/p>\n<p>Iv\u00e1n Espinoza-Madrigal, executive director of the Lawyers\u2019 Committee for Civil Rights and Economic Justice, says that is not enough.<\/p>\n<p>Espinoza-Madrigal\u2019s larger concern is that the Boston Police Department has yet to \u201creally commit to making sure that it has community inclusion and transparency across the board.\u201d Noting he had to sue the Department to get basic demographic data, he believes that the \u201cbiggest roadblock is the lack of diversity as a priority.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf the police department continues to be predominantly white, it is their mission to change that so it reflects and looks like the City of Boston,\u201d he says. \u201cIf the department was as quick to hire police officers of color as it was to hire a diversity officer, then we wouldn\u2019t have a problem at all.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"overflow-y: hidden;\" src=\"https:\/\/magic.piktochart.com\/embed\/23261994-boston-police-diversity-statistics\" width=\"600\" height=\"4000\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>During the past two years, the number of applicants signing up to become police officers has dropped significantly across the nation, especially among minority groups, according to the head of the state\u2019s major &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":303,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-more"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s8SVnH-police","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nehsjc.org\/theleague\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/boston-pd-ivy-wang.jpg?fit=787%2C557&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nehsjc.org\/theleague\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nehsjc.org\/theleague\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nehsjc.org\/theleague\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nehsjc.org\/theleague\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nehsjc.org\/theleague\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.nehsjc.org\/theleague\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":307,"href":"https:\/\/www.nehsjc.org\/theleague\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146\/revisions\/307"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nehsjc.org\/theleague\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nehsjc.org\/theleague\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nehsjc.org\/theleague\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nehsjc.org\/theleague\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}